About a year ago, I talked with Scott Shawcroft, an engineer at Adafruit, about their initiative to develop CircuitPython. He discussed several reasons that you’d probably want to give it a try. The one that really stands out to me is the fact that you do not need a compiler or drivers for the board. This is always a frustrating issue if you have to switch computers or get the Arduino IDE to recognize some new board. With CircuitPython, you just copy a text file to the board as though it were USB storage. Neato!
In the past year, there has been a lot of progress, so here are two fantastic resources for your reference.
CircuitPython Essentials on Adafruit’s Learning System
This is an incredible resource. There are quick breakdowns of many of the things you need to get started. Simple stuff like servo control, capacitive touch, and neopixel control. The list keeps growing too. I also tend to like the Adafruit learning system because there are so many interconnected tutorials that are well written and clear.
Adafruit’s CircuitPython Github
A bit more no-nonsense look at all the resources available. I know Github is powerful, but I’m a sucker for pretty layout, so I tend to go for other resources first. The no nonsense layout does make it a bit easier to see all the resources at once though.
This May, if you happen to be attending Pycon in Cleveland, you could snag some fun Adafruit hardware. They’ll be attending and doing giveaways.
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